As a wildlife veterinarian specializing in monkeys, I can assure you that there are ways to prevent the tragedy that occurred on Oct. 28, 2025 in Mississippi when eight monkeys escaped during transport from Tulane University’s Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans. Five monkeys were killed by authorities and two have been shot dead by members of the public. The final monkey was finally captured by authorities earlier this month.
The Tulane National Biomedical Research Center—a primate research center funded by taxpayers via the National Institutes of Health—reports that the escaped monkeys harbored no known pathogens. The veterinary medical records and necropsy reports have not been released, though, illustrating an ongoing lack of transparency in what occurs behind locked laboratory doors.
When working with both wild and captive rescued macaques throughout Southeast Asia, I experienced firsthand the dangers of infectious disease transmission. After being bitten by a wild macaque in Malaysia, I was immediately (and fortunately) administered post-exposure rabies prophylaxis, involving ten intramuscular injections over a two-month period. It can be a very scary business.
For myself and other workers who handle wild macaques—including individuals involved in their capture and transport—there is a risk of contracting infectious agents known to be harbored in these animals, such as herpes B, rotavirus, tuberculosis, Yersinia pestis (plague) and leptospirosis. Infectious disease research is the most common use for monkeys in NIH-funded U.S. labs, which often requires forcefully infecting the animals with dangerous pathogens, subjecting them to miserable and fatal diseases.
The escape in Mississippi is not an isolated incident. Over the past two decades, there have been more than 15 publicly reported monkey escapes, both in transit and directly from labs, including from the Oregon, Southwest and California National Primate Research Centers.
Earlier this year in my home state, the California National Primate Research Center was cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture after an inspection report noted that a monkey was severely injured from a malfunctioning cage closure. Last year, 43 monkeys escaped the Alpha Genesis breeding facility in South Carolina, allegedly the result of an employee neglecting to lock an enclosure.
These incidents demonstrate a pattern of incompetence that harms monkeys. They are also fraught with opacity—the Alpha Genesis escape only came to light thanks to a whistleblower—reflecting the broader lack of transparency and public understanding of monkey use in research.
Monkey escapes illustrate the infectious disease and injury risks posed to anyone who handles or is exposed to the animals. However, these issues are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the harms caused by animal experimentation.
For decades, medical research and product safety testing have subjected monkeys to a life in the lab. While the animals have some superficial similarities to humans, this research is largely futile and ignores biological differences that lead to difficult and rare translation to human biology and clinical benefit.
Some of the most common monkey species used in research, including rhesus and long-tailed macaques, live in matrilineal social groups or troops in the wild. For the monkeys that live in labs, the isolation, transport and restraint for procedures often lead to immunosuppression and harmful self-directed behavior like engaging in self-mutilation, plucking hair and biting cage bars, impacting experimental reliability.
In place of monkeys, there are a variety of more effective methods available for researchers to use. Some current NIH-funded monkey studies investigate topics like human nutrition or marijuana use—research that can be and has been conducted with human volunteers.
Researchers are also increasingly turning to human-based methods called new approach methodologies, or NAMs, which use human cells, tissues, and data to model human biology and disease more accurately than animals. Methods like tissue chips, organoids and artificial intelligence are advancing rapidly and overcome species-specific translational barriers that contribute to massive drug attrition rates.
Shifting approaches will require overhauling a research infrastructure that favors animal use, including private entities with a financial stake.
The use of monkeys in American research labs drives global trade and threatens wild populations. Certain species that are used, including the long-tailed macaque and southern pig-nosed macaque, have seen significant declines in their wild populations related to their use in research—enough to be listed as endangered.
Further condemning the monkey trade and the role of U.S. research labs, suspicious reports have emerged from breeding facilities in Asia, including biologically impossible birth rates and pointing to high numbers of illegally wild-caught animals. Based on this information, later this year at the Conference of the Parties for the Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, countries that are parties to the treaty will decide whether to enact a total ban on sale of Cambodian long-tailed macaques.
Individual governments are also taking steps to move away from using monkeys for research and turning instead to animal-free methods. The Netherlands recently passed a budget that included a phase-out of public funding for the Biomedical Primate Research Centre—the largest monkey laboratory in Europe, housing more than 1,000 monkeys. Over the next five years, public funds for monkey experiments will be reallocated to animal-free research.
Here in the United States, both the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration have committed to moving away from animal experimentation.
While these changes signify an important and necessary shift in science, as long as we continue to fund unnecessary and dangerous research using monkeys, the demand on wild populations will continue to grow, the development of new treatments will slow and the public will be at risk of dangerous and deadly zoonotic diseases from every escape.
Halting this research and refocusing funding on human-based methods will ensure that human health research actually benefits humans, and certainly that it doesn’t come with detrimental risks to public health and animals.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.